Everything was just a mess - Anonymous employee Pactera Employee Review

First of all, Google "Stevenson v. Pactera" - I was one of the team members affected by this incident, and while I appreciate the settlement check, I can't stress enough how shady it was to have us as 1099 contractors to avoid paying benefits. We were converted to W2 employees fairly soon after I was hired, but I know that some of the others had been there for many months before that happened. Also, I was originally stationed in a satellite office, and eventually when the team dwindled to a handful of people we were shoved into a tiny back room and expected to work despite ongoing loud noise from the team who took over our old office (the walls were thin). This back room was mostly windows, which meant that during the summer months it became almost unbearably hot, and we couldn't open the windows or have fans because the ambient noise would have affected our ability to do our jobs. I'm fairly sure I could have reported the company for inhumane working conditions or something similar (I was wearing a T-shirt and thin pants and still leaving the office drenched in sweat every day), but I was terrified of being fired and suspected nothing would be done even if I did say something. Once I was promoted to a management position and moved to the main area office, I hoped things would improve, which in some ways they did. I received a small raise with the promotion...which I later found out was 70% of what the person who had previously held my position (a man) had been making, as well as hilariously under market rate and barely above minimum wage. I never got any more raises, even though I was (as mentioned) very good at my job and the only person in office who remembered several processes that had become outdated while I worked here (but which I was expected to remember and use if asked). When I asked for a raise and presented evidence that I was being severely underpaid, I was strung along for awhile and then told that no one in the company had received raises in the last year. I also received no sick pay, vacation, or holiday pay. I continued to be listed in the system as a lower-level/contract employee and no one noticed despite my having been in a managerial position for a year and a half. No one ever bothered to explain to me how any of these worked, or whether I was in fact supposed to be getting them at all. I swear that once I entered in holiday hours and they were accepted, but I tried this on the last federal holiday before I left the company and was informed a few days later that I did not qualify for holiday pay and would have to remove those hours from the system. I have since been told that asking employees not to come in AND not to be paid for missing a federal holiday is unusual, especially for a full-time management position. On my last day, I waited until the end of the day to log my hours in the system and found myself totally locked out. (I believe this was resolved, as my final paycheck was the appropriate amount, but at the time it was distressing as I did work the entire day.) I worked on either the in-office desktop computer, or a personal laptop that I purchased to use when I was working from home. At no point was I given a company laptop, and my repeated attempts to ask my managers for help acquiring one were shrugged off. I could have pushed harder for one, but by the time I realized that not having one was unusual (several months into my management position), I had begun to realize that almost no one in the office was interested in making sure I had the tools I needed. I also, somehow, was the only employee in the office who didn't get a proper badge - I may have been out sick that day but I continued to use the same keycard that I'd been given on my move-in day and no one ever bothered to check up on that. After the fact, one of my coworkers pointed out that without the official badge, I could easily have been locked out had my old keycard been disabled on a whim. Was there not a record of my keycard being “missing”? That seems like a ridiculous security risk to me. Upper management was frequently either absent or difficult to reach – the person who was meant to be my "manager" was in-office maybe one day a week and didn't often respond to emails or messages. I had several other people who acted as managers to me, but while they did their best to help, they frequently left or were moved to another team within a few months, leaving me without guidance once again. I worked with overseas management more frequently, especially in the last year or so of my employment. I hold no grudges against them, but they had a tendency to prioritize ridiculous client demands and company policies over the reality of certain situations, and repeated many of the same talking points when I tried to push back. I was given zero management training and very little guidance and mostly left to my own devices in these respects. (Frankly, if my job had been taken by someone less conscientious, this department could have descended into chaos much sooner.) I had repeated conflicts with several subordinates, in multiple cases receiving messages and emails with abusive language regarding both myself and the company. I never felt truly unsafe, but rarely was I given assistance in handling these issues. I always tried to argue in the best interests of my team, but was frequently overruled or ignored. I felt pressure both from the team to voice their concerns to upper management, and from upper management to deliver the (frequently) bad news about new policies or procedural changes. I did not get the sense that I had any real power at all in the situation. My job required that I have a reasonably quiet environment; however, I was forced to move desks several times within a year and each time I found the ambient noise more disruptive to my work. At first I was placed in the same open office as a large team who would sometimes chat with each other and occasionally get rowdy, but were mostly quiet; I then moved to a smaller room where several employees had desk phones and were answering them multiple times a day. Finally, I ended up in the middle of another open office, at a desk that was very close to the employee break room, which had no door and no way of muffling the sound from within. Employees frequently went in there to play pool, chat, take phone calls, and even play video games throughout the workday. I understand some of these things will happen, but the noises from the video games and pool actively impeded my ability to do my job. It was literally the only room in the office without a door and I still don’t understand that architectural decision. I became so stressed due to the low wages and absurd job expectations that I developed a variety of health issues in the last few months I worked there, including a stomach ulcer and ongoing chest pains caused by anxiety that lasted for several days. In the case of the latter, I was in such pain that I was unable to sleep properly and had to go to the ER in the middle of the night. I believe this job impacted my health significantly.